Tokyo, March 27, 2017 - Rakuten, Inc. and Global Engineering Co., Ltd. today announced that the two companies have agreed to jointly engage in setting up a private trading platform for “environmental values*1” and “negawatts*2.”
Based on the agreement, this fall the two companies are scheduled to establish a private trading platform for carrying out trading of negawatts and environmental values such as “J-Credits*3,” “emission credits*4,” and “non-fossil energy certificates*5” for the first time in Japan. In doing so, the companies aim to bring about open price-setting in transactions, vitalize trading, and promote the introduction of innovative technologies in each field. Furthermore, ahead of the establishment of the platform, a trading intermediary service for those parties hoping to buy and sell J-Credits will be launched on Rakuten’s website*6 today.
Following the entry into force of the Paris Agreement in 2016, and amid mounting interest in the environment worldwide, in Japan, J-Credit and emissions credit trading is attracting the attention of leading companies as a means of carbon offsetting, and among retail electricity providers as a means of reducing emissions factors. Furthermore, thanks to the rapid spread of photovoltaic power generation resulting from the FIT*7, the introduction of further renewable energy sources based on the Long-term Energy Supply and Demand Outlook and the launch of negawatt trading in earnest from 2017, trading related to environmental values and negawatts is expected to intensify further. The two companies arrived at today’s agreement on the basis of these circumstances.
Rakuten established Rakuten Energy, which provides energy solution services centering on electricity, in June 2013, and has been implementing a variety of initiatives in order to vitalize the electricity market. In addition, on February 21, 2017 it was registered as a retail electricity provider by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE), and will make a full-fledged entry into the electricity retailing business from April this year.
Global Engineering provides demand response services and sells and maintains power generation equipment. In addition, as one of the companies that will participate in the Virtual Power Plant Construction and Demonstration Project subsidy (aggregator project), for which METI will hold an open call via the Institute of Applied Energy, Global Engineering is promoting the construction of a virtual power plant that will comprehensively manage society’s decentralized energy resources and function as if it is a single power plant.
By establishing a private market, Rakuten and Global Engineering will contribute to the effective reduction of greenhouse gases and the optimization of electricity supply and demand by leveraging the experience they have accumulated thus far to proactively generate environmental values and negawatts as well as vitalize trading.
*1 “Environmental values” are the greenhouse gas reduction effects obtained through introducing renewable energy, energy conservation, and other initiatives, which have been certified and given numerical values by the government or local municipalities.
*2 Added value that can be obtained as a result of viewing the surplus electrical energy arising from users’ conservation of energy as equivalent to electricity generated.
*3 Absorption and reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions arising from initiatives such as the introduction of energy-saving facilities and forestry management have been certified by the government as “J-Credits.”
*4 A right that permits quotas (caps) of greenhouse gases emissions. Governments and companies are permitted to emit greenhouse gases up to the upper limit of the stated emission quota (the emission volume).
*5 Certificates that METI’s ANRE is considering granting to electricity that is generated using non-fossil energy sources.
*6 Private Trading Platform for “Environmental Values” and “Negawatts: https://energy.rakuten.co.jp/exchange/
*7 The Feed-in Tariff Program (a fixed-price purchasing program for renewables)
About Global Engineering
Company name: Global Engineering Co., Ltd.
Founded: September 1991
Main business:
- Retail electricity business
- Proposal of demand response
- Engineering and maintenance of in-house power generation facilities
- Proposal of energy-monitoring systems
- Proposal of energy-conservation systems
- Facility maintenance services
- Carbon dioxide offsetting
Headquarters: Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture
Representative: Representative Director and CEO Akira Oshita
URL: https://www.g-eng.co.jp/index.html
March 27, 2017
- Rakuten, Inc.
- Global Engineering Co., Ltd.